


Bare

by Sylaise



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Past Relationship(s), Reuniting, Was going to be a one-shot, but Maker I loved these two, hopefully not too much?, kind of lovey dovey, post-Alone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-12 15:33:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5671042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylaise/pseuds/Sylaise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Every unexpected smile, every look of pleasant surprise, every time he's found a little bit of light in himself and let it show around her, she's hoarded and kept like little treasures. There had been more and more of them leading up to that night, and there was always the feeling that maybe, hopefully, a long, long way down he dark road he was on, he'd finally find his way, and maybe if she walked two steps behind him and they didn't talk about anything but the weather and the black, impossibly rich Par Vollen wine they'd come across a few days back, maybe, they could meet whatever future they happened upon together. "<br/>---------</p><p>Fenris and Hawke try to relearn one another after three years and find that there was so much they didn't know in the first place. </p><p>(WARNING: Mentions of past abuse because Fenris)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Night falls over the city.

Merchants, voices hoarse form shouting over one another since dawn carefully pack their wares into heavy trunks and crates, and begin their tired journeys home. Lights from tavern windows begin to bleed into the blue dusk, and a warm, late-spring breeze laces through the streets. With it comes the salt and spice of sea vessels, and also darker notes of rot and sewage, tainting the richness like drops of blood in a fine wine. 

Evelyen Hawke breathes the smell in, letting it fill her, trying to remind herself that there's still so much work to be done. That there are bodies floating in the water, and the sharks are coming. Not today, not tomorrow, but soon. 

She tries to remind herself that this city--this damned city--is hers and she's poured so much of herself into it. Spilled so much blood for it. It's taken Carver away from her. It's slashed her with so many scars she's lost count. But it's hers. Hers, and the weight of every wrought iron fence and centuries-old paving slab rests squarely on her shoulders. If she lets the load slip even a finger's breadth, the entire thing will crumble to pieces around her. 

But oh, it's so difficult. She breathes in again, willing the essence of the city into herself, because it's so much more important. But against the sharp crackling of the fire (pointless on this warm night) blazing in the hearth, and the heat it's spreading across her cheeks that's starting to trickle down into her very bone marrow--helped along, blessedly, _finally_ , by rough, clever hands trailing down her throat and over her shoulders--it's pointless. The callouses built up from years of wielding a giant broadsword are rasping a flush over her pale skin as they seek something elusive, something they don't seem to be able to find just yet...but they aren't in any particular hurry. He casually, almost lazily removed the black leather gloves he'd been wearing under his gauntlets with his teeth a moment before, and she realizes she hasn't seen his bare hands in almost three years and Maker, she's forgotten how long his fingers are, how prominent the knuckles...

" _Fenris_ ," she whispers into the side of his face.  _Oh._ The heady mixture of the raw clove he likes sprinkled in his wine, some elusive soap ingredient that she can't place and the sweat that's already starting to bead on his temples is chasing the essence of her duty away so fast she can barely remember her own name. 

A few minutes earlier, he pushed her down into one of the plush chairs and is now kneeling on the floor so their faces are level. She doesn't remember their progress up to this point because the second he touched her, she's been nearly ready to jump out of her skin, for it has all of a sudden grown far too tight. 

It's an awkward angle, and her back is starting to hurt and the hard stone must be agony on his knees, but she doesn't care, and judging by the lazy way his mouth is moving along her jaw and beginning to meander down her throat, he doesn't much care either. 

She moves to breath into his ear, running her tongue around the pointed shell, trying to chip into his restraint. How many times has she remembered him on that night so long ago? Raw, unbound, not so much taking as  _ripping_ what he needed from her. She'd met each lick, each nip, each push with more eagerness than she thought she'd even possessed. How many times over the years since that night has she slipped away in her mind to the foot of her bed? Where they'd slammed into one another, not even having bothered to take their clothes off, so desperate were they to feel and to claim? How many times has she brought her own fingers into herself, remembering his fingernails digging into her hips, and come shaking and crying into her pillows? 

Moaning out loud at the relived memories, and the idea that it will be his fingers on her, in her, she sits up and arches into him, offering him her breasts and neck, wishing she could beg him without feeling foolish.  

She juts her hips toward his, and pulls his hands down, squeezing them over her breasts, desperate for friction  _somewhere_. She likes the idea of him taking her like this, the air thick with heat from the fire, the skirt of her dress rucked up to her hips, letting him take her away from this place for a time and watching him lose himself in her. 

He starts to hook his fingers into the bodice of her dress, and she's desperate for him to pinch her nipples, when he looks up from what he's doing and catches her eyes. 

He hesitates, and pulls away slightly, his hazel eyes dark and heavy like ocean clouds before a hurricane as they search her face. 

"Evy," he starts, and the sound of his low voice--finally,  _finally_ so close and just for her--makes her shiver and rock against him, not wanting him to stop. Ever. 

His eyes flash hot, and for a second, she thinks he's going to move back into her, but he stops himself, letting this lashes flutter closed and taking a deep, calming breath. 

"Are you...what's wrong?" she asks, bringing her hand up to his face and running a finger between the lyrium lines on his chin. 

"Nothing. It's just...nothing."

 She starts to press the finger between his lips, wanting to feel the heat of his mouth, but he turns his face away. 

She takes her own calming breath. She's been so lost in her own desire that she's forgotten who exactly it is she's with. 

She lowers herself out of the chair and into a sitting position in front of him, cross-legged, taking his hands and wordlessly inviting him to join her. He cocks a black eyebrow, and only pauses a moment before sitting across from her, mirroring her position. The way he brings his knees up against hers, like they're children in a blanket house, surprises her because it's intimate and simple, and it makes her smile as she laces her fingers through his. 

This is what she'd been really missing.

True, there was only a single night of wild, desperate need, and he hasn't gone from her life completely. On the contrary, she trusts him at her back every time she takes on some new horror. And she's come to realize that literally trusting someone with your life is, in many ways, far more profound than physical affection. He's been there, playing cards with her and Varric, sitting around fires on the Wounded Coast and even though he mostly just listens--which is nothing new--he's been there. The things they agree on cover types of wine and wood stain colors, and it's only ever been like that. Before that night, though, there was this sense between them of peeling away layers, layers built up from years of...no...she can't compare anything she's been through to what his life has been.

That would be ridiculous and unfair. 

But every unexpected smile, every look of pleasant surprise, every time he's found a little bit of light in himself and let it show around her, she's hoarded and kept like little treasures. There had been more and more of them leading up to that night, and there was always the feeling that maybe, hopefully, a long,  _long_ way down he dark road he was on, he'd finally find his way, and maybe if she walked two steps behind him and they didn't talk about anything but the weather and the black, impossibly rich Par Vollen wine they'd come across a few days back,  _maybe_ , they could meet whatever future they happened upon together. 

Those were the things that left with him that night, and not really come back. Not until earlier that day, after Varania had left and he stood, lost, rage and defiance forgotten for the time being as he'd contemplated his solitude. She'd told him, without thinking but completely truthfully, that _she_ was there. The look on his face when he'd turned to her...naked affection, amusement, pity, gratitude....

"Ev," he says softly, bending a little to meet her eyes, which had trailed away to a point near his left elbow. 

"I'm sorry, Fenris." 

"For what?" 

How to say this. She looks at him for a moment, holding his gaze as he waits for her to speak. 

"That night...I've wanted...imagined it...so many times."

"Just as it was?" he asks, breaking their eye contact and squinting toward the fire. 

She hesitates, knowing that whatever he'd seen that night, in his memories or in himself, or both, had driven most of him away from her for three years. 

Well, she guesses they're talking about it now. 

She nods, now seeking his eyes as they try to avoid hers. 

"I was using you," he says, finally, still looking at the fire. 

"I know." 

"To forget," he continues like she hadn't spoken, "I thought that I wanted you...wanted to feel...wanted you to feel me...that I might be falling..." he brought his lips into his mouth and bit them while he inhaled slowly through his nose, "But now I think the only thing I did back then was need. And I would have denied it until my grave." 

She smiles, and runs her fingertips along the inside of his hands, "Everyone needs." 

"Yes, but most people are capable of giving back when the need has passed."  

"You're not?"

He looks up at her, shakes his head slowly. "Not then anyway. I didn't think I'd ever stop needing. I needed answers then. And that night I found some and I was afraid..." all of these words come spilling out, like he's trying to get them out before he allows himself to stop them. "I was afraid I'd start using you for that, too." 

She brings her forehead to his, and hot, unbidden tears fills her eyes and she quickly brushes them away. Jagged slices of anger are piercing through her, hot as molten iron. They took so much from him; his freedom, his body, his memories, and now he's so petrified of intimacy...

"Do not pity me," and his voice is so sharp she looks up, surprised.

"I wasn't--" 

"You were." 

She takes a breath, determined not to let that old wedge drive between them again.  

"Do you think you're the first person in the world to have trouble with--" she doesn't want to say _l_ _ove_ \--"things like this? Do you think you're the only person in the world with scars?"

He looks at her incredulously, and she nearly backs down. The look isn't surprise that she has scars, but that she's presuming to compare her scars with his. But no, she's going to say this. 

"If there's one single patch of level ground in this world, it's the bedroom. No one has a clue what they're doing. Everyone is petrified of laying themselves...bare...like that."

"I wouldn't know," he says, and there's a bit of defiance in his voice "I've only ever been in one bedroom that I can remember. And no one was bare, because I was..."

His voice has inched its way to almost a shout by this point, before he stops, and takes another calming breath, and when he speaks again, the words are quiet. "I needed you that night. I needed you like I've never needed...anything...I'd been thinking of you...like that...for so long that I needed to see what it was like." 

" And now you've just described _everyone's_ first time," she says, and he narrows his eyes at her, like he's trying to think of something to shoot back at this, but then--and she's certain that this is the difference between the man he is now and the man he was three years ago--his eyes soften, and he brings her hand up to his face and lets it lay against his cheek as he searches her for the right answer.

The corner of his mouth quirks up and he says "This is why I didn't want to talk about it." 

His voice is low, soft, maybe a little defeated, but it's more like he's frustrated that he can't convince her of his side of the issue than anything.

She smiles, and then lets out a little laugh. 

That night _had_ been about need, even though the feelings they'd had for one another were real, but they hadn't lain themselves bare. Not really. She remembers how he felt inside her, and it still brings a shot of heat through her, but as clear and delicious a memory as that is, she finds herself wanting more. To find the places on his body that make him sigh, to take her time with him, to see his body whole and find out whether it's as beautiful as his hands. 

And then the way he'd been tracing those hands so slowly, so softly over her skin makes sense, because she knows then that he'd been trying to do that with her, trying to let this be the first thing between them that isn't tinged with frustration and anger, and she'd been acting the rutting milkmaid. 

"I'm still sorry," she says, and his mouth turns up a little more. 

He takes another breath and opens his mouth again before she closes it with hers, and he pauses at her soft touch, so different from a few minutes ago.

His lips are smooth and firm, unlike hers, she thinks, grimacing inwardly. She wonders if he can feel the rawness from her frequent nervous biting of the skin there. He brushes an especially angry patch on one side of her bottom lip with his tongue and pulls back, studying her closely. 

"You're always making sure I'm all right," he says finally, and it's not an accusation or criticism, just a statement of fact. His eyes are flitting back and forth, and she can tell he's thinking. She waits for him to work out whatever he's trying to work out, because she knows the twisting roads of his process so well. 

He glances around then, at the fire, the chair, her hitched-up and misplaced clothing and the scattered wine bottles, papers and books littering the tables and a few stretches of floor. 

"This," he kisses her softly and briefly. "Should be different." 

She smiles and leans in for another kiss...her lust still simmering just below the surface. 

He holds a hand up between their mouths and hums a little laugh before standing up and reaching down to pull her to her feet. Both of them have been sitting for so long that their legs tingle as the blood moves back into them, and they steady each other. She's surprised to find herself quite nervous. Again, the thought of what he'd felt like as he'd taken her, the places he'd hit inside of her, swims to the surface and contradicts the flutters in her stomach. This won't be like their first time. That had been so long ago, and so, so much had changed. 

He laces his fingers in hers, and turns to walk toward the stairs, and she follows, fascinated, again so surprised at how intimate such a simple thing can be. She wonders if he's taken someone's advice on... 

She stops short on the fourth step of the massive staircase, and he turns, two steps above her trying to pull her back toward him. 

"Fenris," she starts, treading carefully, "I don't want...don't need...flower petals or candles or anything..." 

He quirks his head at her as she trails off, and steps down to be on a level with her. 

"I'm aware. I can't think of a woman I've known who needs those things less, in fact." 

"I--" she starts, before narrowing her eyes it him "Wait, what exactly are you implying?" 

He looks startled for a minute, and starts to apologize, but then clearly registers the teasing in her voice. He smirks as he catches her hand, and pulls her close to him. She breaths him in again (warm skin and woodsmoke and a hint of oil from his armor) and she finds herself happy in a way she'd not felt since...well, she wasn't certain she'd ever felt it, actually.  

After a moment, she says into his shoulder "I mean it, though. I don't need anything other than you...as you are." 

"I know," comes his soft reply, and he brings a hand up up stroke her hair. Even more softly, he says "I'm not certain who that is, exactly. Maybe I will be a man who enjoys seducing women with candles and flower petals." 

She laughs into his neck, fully and brightly, and tightens her grip around him for a few seconds. "Let me know how you fare." 

"I shall." 

He turns again, and they continue making their way up the stairs. 

  


	2. Chapter 2

Having known him for so many years, she thinks she knows what she will see when he opens the door to his bedroom; a bed, perhaps a fireplace and a place to sit, and a bit of the same carelessness with which he treated the other parts of the mansion she'd seen. He's always taken a scornful pleasure in keeping the home of his old master in more or less the same dismal state they had found it in years ago, sometimes actively ruining parts of it himself. She's never asked him about it, though.

 But as he pushes the door open wider and leads her through the threshold, she feels her eyebrows go up. The room has two large windows, reaching nearly from floor to ceiling, and the rising moon shines through them, bright enough to illuminate most of the room. There is a fireplace, graced by a mantel and a beautiful mirror, with wood neatly stacked beside it. A large bed is situated on the opposite side of the room, close to one of the windows. On it, a rich cover in a deep green material that looks like very finely combed wool, and mismatched pillows, one covered in a deep blue cotton trimmed with silk, the other an overstuffed, rich gold velvet. It's not "made," precisely, but the blanket is pulled up, and the pillows are laid carefully, routinely, somehow. A large wardrobe in some dark, gorgeous wood stands near the foot of it, and one of the doors is opened slightly, a gray shirt and pair of black leggings folded over the top. Two mannequins are placed next to it, one bare, one holding a second, slightly more intricate set of plate and leathers. His huge sword and its scabbard are set up against the wall beside them. A simple, rough-hewn bookshelf, filled with a little collection of books, scrolls and trinkets and a delicate, willowy writing desk and chair round out the furniture. 

Three paintings occupy the wall space not taken up by furniture or windows, and each is carefully hung to give the room a sense of order and balance. She squints through the darkness at the artwork, trying to figure out what they are. As she steps in closer, she feels the unmistakable crush of soft wool under her feet. 

The door clicks shut behind her, and he hangs back as she moves further into the room. If it were her own room she was entering, she would have waved her hand at the hearth, and a fire would spring up there, illuminating the space so she could take more of it in. That doesn't really seem a good idea at the moment, though. 

He seems to be reading her mind, for she hears the crack of a match behind her, and warm light spills through the cool moonshine, growing brighter as he lights the lamp he's picked up from a small round, glossy table next to to the door. 

He moves across the room to the bed, placing the lamp on another small table that holds a fine china washbasin and pitcher. She notices this table is completely different in shape and style than the one next to the door--square, heavy and carved with what look like animal motifs. 

He busies himself removing his chestplate and spiked pauldrons as she walks around the room, studying the artwork on the walls.

The first is a sea under a dark, stormy sky, and though it's a spare composition, the clouds and choppy current are painted so masterfully that she can practically hear the rumbles of thunder and the hiss of the rain hitting the waves.

The next is a chalk sketch of shining red apples hanging amongst a tangle of green leaves that practically brings the taste of the sweet fruit to her mouth, and she smiles as she turns back around to face him, and feels her stomach do a little flip. 

Armor now discarded, not put back on the form but laid carefully against the foot of  the wardrobe, he wears a loose gray shirt and black leather leggings that cling to the muscles of his thighs, and lace up the sides of his calfs to about his knees. He's gorgeous, of course, but what is striking at the moment is how easy, how comfortable he looks, as though a bit of the crushing load has finally been hefted from his back. 

He's watching her closely, and seats his slender form on the bed as he says "You look surprised." 

For a moment, she thinks she sees a flash of anger in his eyes, but it's gone as soon as the thought comes to her and sees him give a tiny little shake of his head, like he's trying to shake away a bothersome bit of debris. 

"Well...no, not surprised, just..." 

Truthfully, she  _is_ surprised, not by the possessions themselves, but that they feel so used, so lived in and so _his._  And so taken care of.

She always finds herself mostly uncaring about the state of her own bedroom, not spending much time there except to sleep or to dress, preferring to expend her energy on making sure the parts of the house that she actually spends time in, and which people actually see, are presentable and comfortable. 

It occurs to her that this is exactly the opposite. Danarius' house and his reluctance to move out of it after all these years have always seemed to her like the ultimate in self-flagellation, to the point of being twisted. But the part of her who hates his former owner more than anyone except maybe Fenris himself has always taken some fierce delight in the way he's let parts of the magister's house decay and actively abuses others. Nothing here has been chosen and laid out simply according to fashion or common taste, but according to his own sensibilities of practicality and comfort. Nothing in it, from the graceful desk and chair to the simple bookshelf, were here originally, either. Or any one place. It's all been been collected, curated over six years of living, traveling and fighting. 

Yes, he has been directing his anger toward this house, purposefully battering it, neglecting it, relishing the righteous desecration. But he's also saved a tiny piece of it for himself, making it his own, fighting his way outward from the center point of the abyss he'd been thrown into long ago.

"Just what?"

She looks into his eyes for a long moment before walking slowly across the room--neither the largest or the most grand in the massive mansion--and stands before him where he sits on the bed. He looks up at her with an expression of what she thinks might be defiance, challenging her to say that she never expected him to be able to decorate a room or point out that the rug doesn't match the bedcover. But she reaches for his face with both hands and brushes her thumbs along his cheeks, trying to let him know that what she's going to say is coming from a place of utmost sincerity. 

"This is who you are." 

And the words are not really for him, she realizes as they leave her mouth. It's clear that he's spent the last half a decade building this place for himself and doesn't really need to be told. She bites at her lip, waiting for that anger she saw a moment ago, worried that he'll take what she says as patronizing, presumptuous to assume he needs her--or anyone--to say anything about who he is. 

He seems to read this in her eyes, and understand, at least in part, what she's trying to say. Instead of turning away, or shouting at her, or accusing her of being a typical human, he stands, taking her hands from his face and holding them tightly to his chest and whispers, as though he's only recently come to this conclusion himself, "Yes." 

He moves in to kiss her then, and as his hands move to tip her face upward the minuscule amount it takes for their mouths to be on the same level, his right shirtsleeve hikes up his forearm and she sees--

"Fenris, is this--?" 

He looks down as she runs her finger over a band of red silk wrapped around his wrist. He squints, clearly having forgotten about it, looking a little embarrassed.

She thinks back then to the gesture she's come to see as the height of foolishness with the passing years.  Even now, she isn't certain what she meant in doing it, only that he admired the color on her when he'd visited her house on a rainy, freezing night so long ago, and she'd come to the door wearing a new, deep red silk tunic, bought on a whim from a merchant in Hightown. She'd flushed with the compliment. Of course her mother had noticed and pounced on it the second he'd left. When she came across the copy of  _A Slave's Life_ and decided to give it to him, she'd left the tunic's red silk sash between two of the center folios on some kind of ridiculous whim. It's still one of those things that makes her wince to herself when she thinks of it, for not once has he mentioned it. She remembers waiting for him to bring it up, to ask her about it, and as the days have turned into weeks, months and years, she's tried to convince herself that he'd thought it merely a relic of the book's past owner and simply thrown it away. 

She's never seen him wearing it. But then, she hasn't seen him out of much of his armor since that night three years ago. 

He inhales, slowly, and then nods, still not looking at her. 

She smiles and throws her arms around him, feeling a bit foolish to be so giddy over such an idiotic, _childish_ thing. 

He brings his arms up and holds her to him, and she feels him smile into her neck.

"I don't know if I'm happier you've kept it for so long or that you didn't think I was a foolish schoolgirl leaving bits of my clothing in books and giving them to people I fancy." 

"No more foolish than the one who has worn it for three years after telling her he couldn't be with her," he says softly. 

"And all this time, I've been thinking you're a cold-hearted bastard and here you are...prince gallant wearing his lady's token into battle." 

He laughs, and the sound is full and rich, and she realizes that she's never heard it before. It's unpracticed and probably a little forced, but the fact that he offers it to her freely makes her cling to him even more tightly. 

They stand in silence for awhile, each letting the other seep into them. 

"I want to see you," she says into his ear, and feels him shiver. 


	3. Chapter 3

He pulls back from her, and rests his head against hers, eyes closed, breathing in through his nose.

Slowly, she brings her hands around to where his loose shirt is laced at the base of his neck. "Fenris," she whispers again, relishing the way it falls on her tongue.

Opening his eyes, he glances down at where her fingers grasp the ties, nodding slowly before kissing the side of her face as she starts to pull them lose. She knows he won't break, understands his strength, more now than ever, but she tries earnestly to keep her touch light and unhurried. He moves his hands up to rest them around her wrists as she works, watching her with a blend of curiosity and wonder. 

_This should be different._

When the laces are loose enough, she trails her hands down to the hem of the shirt, and once again finds his eyes, and he smiles through them, offering the unasked for permission she's seeking. 

Her fingertips connect with the impossibly smooth skin of his stomach, and he closes his eyes and makes a little sound. 

Even though this makes her entire body tingle, and makes her want to tear the shirt at the seams, she pushes it up slowly,  _agonizingly,_ feeling the ridges of the lyrium veins under her palms, and she hopes the roughness of her hands isn't bothersome. 

He raises his arms to let her pull the shirt over his head, and when she finally has him free of it, she folds it over once and places it over the footboard, thinking of the clothes so carefully folded over the wardrobe. 

Seeing her do this makes him smile with his whole face this time, and he moves in to put his arms around her, and the heat from him is so delicious, she folds herself into it like a cat, but as the fabric and fastenings of her bodice touch the marked skin of his chest, he hisses and draws back slightly. 

"Oh my...I'm sorry, I wasn't..."

"Shhh..." he says, pressing a finger over her lips, and if she didn't know him, she would have thought the smirk he gives her is practiced every day in a looking glass, and used nearly as frequently to get women to shed clothing. "We'll just have to..." and he trails off as his hands move up to start working on the clasps of her bodice, and as the moments pass, the smirk slowly melts off his face, his eyebrows knit together and he becomes as focused on the task of undoing the twenty or so hooks that she thinks he may have forgotten the greater context of their situation. She reaches up to run a hesitant hand through his shock-white hair as he works, and he freezes for a moment at the unfamiliar touch, but continues a second later.

Her clothes are light, with only a sleeveless overdress of dark blue raw silk and a shift of pale cotton, and it doesn't take those fingers long to push away the upper part of the bodice, and let it fall down to the floor, leaving her in the thin cotton underdress that she knows leaves nothing to the imagination. She can feel her nipples pressing the light cotton and knows that their flush is clear as day under the thin fabric, for his eyes linger over them as he runs a hand down her sternum and stomach brushing  _so close_ to where she's been soaking wet for him for the last hour, and pushes the garment up over her waist and pulls it over her head. 

He drapes it over the footboard next to his shirt though he doesn't take his eyes off her. 

Not knowing what to do under his gaze, she automatically lifts her chin, as she's done with small handful of other men she's taken to her bed in fits of loneliness after they'd uncovered her torso.

Their eyes never failed to run along the scar twisting from just above her left hip up to her sternum, and catch on her improperly healed right collarbone (a relic of the Arishock's crushing hands) where it juts out, disrupting the symmetry of the part of her she'd always thought desirable and alluring. They never mention the deep, jagged scar over her right breast, born of a darkspawn bolt and stitched inexpertly by Varric's shaking hand as she'd lain against a blood-smeared wall in the Warden prison. Something about the way it had healed made her breasts hang slightly askew. No, they never mention it, but practically pull a muscle trying to look anywhere but at her chest. This leads their eyes to inevitably travel over her arms and legs, no doubt picturing them smooth, clear, thinking that they would have been _lovely_ without the countless nicks, scrapes and bruises.

She wills herself not to shift her feet, or rush to block at least some part of her body with her hands--which had made a few of _them_ ask "Why don't you go to a healer?" 

She knew then and she knows now that they were just trying to be helpful, thinking their words and sympathetic smiles compassionate.

She hadn't bothered to tell them that she'd been weak and nearly unconscious with bloodloss that night in Vimmark, all of her energy expended from healing a bone-deep burn covering most of Isabela's right arm and shoulder. Hadn't bothered to tell them that she'd been so perpetually irritated with both Anders and Merrill that she'd neither asked them to come along nor had any desire to seek them out for help after. And anyway, by the time they'd come back to Kirkwall, the wound had been mostly closed. No, she hadn't told them how the bizarre magical lash spell Hadriana had so mercilessly thrown at them had caught her and ripped its way up her body, and she'd been so reluctant to use magic around Fenris after they'd confronted his former tormentor. Or what a useless expense of energy healing small and cuts and bruises was. 

She continues to look at him steadily, and he steps closer to her, not speaking for a long moment. His eyes too linger over the mess above her breast, but instead of moving on, he brings his fingers up to hover over it, hesitating, then he gives a little shake of his head and a small smile. 

"I thought we were going to have to carry Varric all the way back to Kirkwall, he was so unhinged by having to do this," he says idly as he moves the pad of his finger over the scar tissue, sending a little shiver through her, but not in a bad way. 

She rolls her eyes and shakes her head, "You could have done it." 

"I was making sure we didn't get ambushed by--"

"Hurlocks," she finishes for him, smiling, "I'd forgotten." 

"I hadn't" he says with a grimace, still stroking he scar softly. I had to fight the things off  _myself_ for nearly an hour." 

They look at each other again and laugh again, slightly darkly, at the memory. 

He runs his hand up, tracing the jagged line of her skewed collar bone with his middle finger, and continues down the thin line left by Hadriana's lash. Hot anger twists his face for a moment, but he shakes it away and finally pulls her to him gently. 

When her skin connects with his, he tenses again for a moment and she starts to pull back, not wanting to hurt him, but slowly, slowly, he relaxes into the embrace. His hands move up her back, feeling the gouges left by a Mabari's teeth long ago and she copies him, lightly tracing the swirling patterns she feels climbing like sinister vines along his spine and shoulder blades and curling around the back muscles. 

"Am I hurting you?" she asks softly, 

She hears him chuckle beside her ear, and shake his head softly before he moves his head in and finally kisses her. 

She feels his tongue against her top lip and opens her mouth to him with a gasp that he answers with a low moan. Smiling into his kiss, she starts pushing him gently toward the bed and he falls back on it, pulling her with him, making her laugh, and she thinks of the last time she'd smiled this much--before her mother died, surely. 

Moving over him, she hooks her fingers into the waist of his leather leggings, reaching just a hint of the skin of his lower abdomen with her fingertips. She kisses his stomach, running her tongue briefly around his naval, before turning her head to rub her cheek against the fevered skin, feeling the lyrium tingle with the contact. 

She can feel his heart beating even from down here as she looks up at him and flicks her tongue out again right where his skin disappears beneath the soft leather. His eyes flicker, and he reaches down to run a hand through her hair as she begins to pull the leggings down, finally baring him to her. 

It's less graceful and magical than she's hoped. The leather, though soft and pliable doesn't pull away from him easily, and there's a good deal of wiggling and tugging and they're both breathless with laughter before he's finally out of them. 

 She rises to sit back on her heels, and he pillows his head on a bent arm to look up at her, reaching up to her marred breast with his free hand to run a thumb over her nipple. She sighs at the contact, and as the moonlight spills over the bed, catching in his hair and casting his lyrium brands into sharp relief, the sight is enough to make her breath leave her, for she doesn't think she's ever seen anything more striking. 

Her eyes trace the uninterrupted trails along his chest and stomach almost hungrily, and she longs to follow the swirls over his hips and thighs with her tongue and savor it because he is finally here, and finally letting her in. But as her eyes travel over his groin, following the brands along their relentless path, she notices that they branch off into thinner and thinner lines, curling like sharp little teeth around the base of his length before joining back into a thick line along the underside of the shaft.

Suddenly, she thinks she might weep. 

She flushes. Wittingly or not, he'd said and done exactly the right things when he'd seen her scars. He'd been there for all of them, and that was all it took, really; him knowing that they were just a part of her, and mementos, in a way, of a life well spent, and not any cause for pity. He'd made her feel, made her  _know_ , she was beautiful to him without really trying at all. 

This is different. 

She wants to tell him he's beautiful, because he is. But the cost of his beauty was--perhaps still is at times--unspeakable shame and agony.

She has no right words or gestures for the things she feels when she remembers the look in Danarius' eyes yesterday as he'd ordered Fenris back to him.

_The lad is rather skilled, isn't he?_

No words for the twisted, poisonous thing in her gut when she thought of the way those eyes had combed Fenris' body like hers were doing now.

No words for the horror clamping over her heart because there was little reason to brand a person's most intimate parts other than broken, _diseased_ pleasure. 

How could she have not noticed this on that night three years ago? She supposes, thinking back, that it had been so fast and they'd both been so lost; her dress pushed up and her bodice pulled down only enough to allow him access to her nipples and her aching center, him freed from his pants only long enough to push into her. In the moment, she'd loved how wild it had been, for never had she been wanted so desperately, or wanted so desperately that there had been no time to spare to remove any more clothing than was necessary for each of to get what they needed. She supposes maybe she'd thought there would be a time for gentleness and knowing one another after the need had been met. 

"Evelyen," he says, sitting up slowly and carefully, like he doesn't want to frighten her, making her realize that everything piercing through her mind must have played across her face like smoke signals. 

He hesitates, and then gently closes his fingers around her wrist and leads her hand slowly over his chest and stomach, letting her see and feel the little signs of his pleasure at her touch. When their hands reach between his legs, he closes her hand around his half-hard length, and she feels it jump a little bit at the pressure. 

He _hmms_ at the sensation and his eyes flutter shut before he says, "I want you here." 

And she isn't certain which of the four words he means to emphasize, but she doesn't think it matters, and she doesn't think she's ever felt more unspeakable adoration for anything or anyone as she does for this man right now. 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick few things: 
> 
> 1) thank you all so much for the love you've shown this little endeavor. I have to confess that I've been imagining this reunion since I first played this game years ago and to finally be sharing it is freeing and wonderful and even moreso because you all are enjoying it at least enough to give kudos or comment. So thank you <3
> 
> 2) this chapter is a little different and divided into two sections because I'd originally planned the sections as separate chapters, but it felt like two longish chapters of pretty much just SEX and that didn't really go with the slow, meander-y pacing of the rest of the work. So it's kind of one really long chapter of just SEX, but there's at least a little break and some awkwardness and...I don't know, it's not beautifully structured smut or anything, but to me, this is them. So I hope you enjoy. *runs and hides with a very red face because I'm self conscious*
> 
> xoxo

She watches him as she continues stroking him gently.

He's leaning back, resting his weight on his hands, still looking at her like he's trying to make her understand how much he wants her. He's totally hard now, and his hips give a little jerk every time her fingers brush the head of him on the upstroke. She doesn't want to squeeze or pull hard for fear of it being too much for his sensitive skin, but when she sees the little glint of wetness at the tip, every fiber of restraint she possesses is pulled to the breaking point trying not to bend down and lick it away.

She runs her thumb over the tip instead, feeling the wet drop of heat come away with it. The skin is impossibly smooth, and at her touch he lets out another of those delicious moans as his head falls back toward the window, and it floods his blissful face with moonlight. Now she can't resist. She leans in and puts her mouth to his very exposed throat, only grazing the skin the barest amount with her teeth. He hisses again, but not like he's in any pain, and she thinks that she's never known pure, unadulterated _hunger_ until now.

She can't help but moan a little herself and she rests her head on his shoulder as she moves. She's seen him at his breaking point. Oh, yes. And she'd allowed herself to fantasize about it more than she cares to admit to anyone, to the point where she's fairly certain it was the only thing that drove her even close to coming above or beneath any of the other men she'd taken to her bed. But there had been so many other shattered things in them then. So many things they'd both been unwilling or unable to let go of.

This is just him. And he's bare and unburdened and at last able to let her see him.

Looking up, she increases her speed just a little, but keeps her strokes steady, and he brings his head back up to look at her through half-lifted eyes, biting his lips again and forcing the ragged breaths out through his nose. She's so close to him that she feels more than hears the sounds in his throat, trapped like he's trying to cage them.

She kisses his neck again and whispers "You can let them out if you like."

As soon as she says it, she thinks it sounds foolish, but he must understand because he does let a little choked laugh escape that winds its way into a moan as she feels him tense, arching every muscle toward her hand. The lyrium coursing through him, already so bright in the moonlight, is starting to shimmer lightly, as it does whenever he loses control of himself, and it's accentuated by the sheen of sweat covering him.

"Evy...I'm so...I'm...you should stop if you want me to be..."

And he doesn't finish whatever he's trying to say because it's interrupted by another moan as she feels the heat coursing up through him, so close to spilling out.

He reaches blindly for her face, cradling it against the side of his own like he thinks she might disappear if he doesn't hold onto her.

Maker, she's wetter than she's ever been in her life. She feels it spreading beneath her as she briefly entertains the thought of using her other hand on herself, just to take some of the bloody edge off, but she feels like this isn't really the time.

"Just...let go. We have all night," she whispers in his ear, before wrestling her head out of his grasp and lacing his hand with her own because she wants to watch him.

When he comes, he's raw and alive as he stiffens and lets out a sound so loud she thinks it might have even surprised him. He bites back the end of it as he curls in around her hand, his eyes squeezed shut and jaw clenching. The lyrium lines flare and pulse as she feels and sees hot spurts coat her hand and his thigh and she swallows his escaped gasp with her mouth because she wants to drink in every single part of his pleasure.

Now she brings her other hand up, over his sweaty cheek and through his dampening hair, holding his face firmly to hers as the shudders lessen, and his body starts to quiet itself, and they stay there for a moment, and she wonders idly if anything has ever tasted so wonderful than his tongue does in her mouth right then. He lays back down on the bed, pulling her with him and breaking her mouth away. He wraps his arms around her, holding her against his still pounding chest. She feels his nose and mouth in her hair, feels him breathe her in, and _oh_ she's still so wild and she needs something soon or she'll go mad but right now...it's all him and his arms and his hands and his heavy breathing, all draped in pale starlight.

After a little while, he hums a soft laugh and she feels him give her a squeeze before he pulls his head back so he can look into her eyes.

"You're always making sure I'm all right," he repeats, brushing aside a strand of hair clinging to the corner of her mouth.

"And are you? All right?"

His eyes are filled with smiling and no small amount of surprise as he says "I've never...it's never...been like that before."

She raises an eyebrow at him. "Really...most men I've known say that's something that they prefer when they do it themselves."

He chuckles at this, but she bites her lip, feeling like both the "most men" part would raise his hackles and the careless assumption that he found any joy in touching himself might have struck a darker chord within him.

Seeing this, he starts to speak again, but glances down and notices that her hand is still covered in him. She's been holding it up awkwardly so as not to make a complete mess of his bedcover. He quickly moves to grab a cotton towel from next to the washbasin. He holds it up so she can wipe her hand off, then swipes at his thighs before tossing it back on the table.

Putting a few gentle fingers under her shoulder direct her to sit up, he scoots around her, pulling the coverlet up so they can both climb beneath it.

She settles her head on one of his arms as his fingers stroke her back, but she continues to bite her lip, pulling at a newly discovered flap of skin.

"Stop," he says and puts his other hand to her face.

"Stop what?"

"Worrying."

His voice a bit louder than usual, but his eyes are soft. 

"I just meant that most men prefer...other things...when they're actually in bed with another person. I'm glad such a simple thing was so good for you." 

He nods slowly, thoughtfully, and then rocks his hips into hers slightly, a smile hinting at the corner of his mouth. "It's true I can think of many things I want to do with you, but..." he pauses, looking for the words, and she's happy she doesn't see the look of embarrassment or frustration she usually sees when he's unable to communicate his feelings. "I've no memory of wanting another's hands on me as much as I do yours. It's...different.”

She nods slowly, giving him time to add more to this if he needs to. When he stays silent, she asks quietly, feeling like she should. "Did you see anything this time?"

His eyes slowly move to a place much farther away than this bed on this night, then focus back on her. Slowly he shakes his head.

"Only you."

She isn't sure she believes him entirely, and it--of course--shows on her face, because he says "I think I may have seen something right when it happened, but...I don't remember what it was. And I'm not sure I care to. Because I have..."

He says the last part almost to himself, and he's searching again, but she thinks he might just be coming up with a less melodramatic way of saying "I have you."

Hedging her bets, she looks at him, seriously, and with no trace of laughter or teasing she says, "You do."

He smiles at her, and pulls her close to him, breathing in to smell her hair again, so she does the same to him, and it's still oil and sweat and the soap that she decides must be something Seheron but still can't place it.

There's a shadow, hovering right over him, and he's trying to grab at it. She knows what it is. But Andraste be damned if she's going to cause him to knot up again and tighten himself against her. He continues idly stroking her skin with his fingertips and she lets him be for awhile.

"Ev, I know...I feel should be able to...tell you," he says after a few long minutes, softly, but with a frankness that surprises her. "But not now, not tonight. I'm...it would be like having them right here in front of me again."

Unbidden anger boils through her as he says it. And it's followed by a hissing, sputtering chill when she registers his use of the word _them._ Who ever _they_ are, or were, she hopes she's killed all of them at some point over the past six years.

She wishes she could tell him that talking about it would purge the memory, somehow; _Fenris my love please just tell tell me so I can help carry a tiny bit of the weight of it_ , and all of that nonsense.

But she knows it's not that easy. It's never that easy.

She reaches up and kisses the side of his face and feels his cheek tense with what could have been a grimace of some deeply buried pain starting to work its way out of him or a simple smile. She can't tell which.

\-------------

They doze for awhile, both lost in their thoughts, but it's strangely not lonely. They're like two weavers working looms beside one another, she thinks; each has a slightly different process and perhaps some varying hand movements, but they are companions, and if they have questions there's no doubt the other will have answers.

She must actually sleep for a time, because she doesn't remember him moving away from her.

He's blown out the lamp, and he's still got one arm under her neck, but he's facing out the window, one hand resting on his chest, the red sash around his wrist the only thing showing any of its true color in the cool light. She's been curled against him, letting the covers and his heat warm her, but he's pushed the blanket down around his waist. For a second, she thinks he's still sleeping, but then she sees the light glinting off his eyes.

She reaches for the hand resting on his chest, and he starts a little bit, turning toward her. She thinks he's going to speak, but he only looks at her for a moment before kissing her, deeply, thoroughly, sucking her bottom lip into his mouth, gently soothing the chapped skin with his tongue.

Smiling into his kiss, she arcs toward him, and when he lifts a breast in his hand, kneading it a little tentatively, wordlessly asking her to tell him how hard or how soft he should go. She feels the heat shoot through her to where the dampness is still seeping through, desire dormant, but rapidly waking. She grasps his hand and squeezes like she did down by the fire, and now it's her turn to let him see exactly how much she wants him. She sighs into his mouth, and he squeezes again, letting her nipple pinch between his thumb and forefinger.

She hooks her leg around his hip and he laughs deep and warm in his chest and pushes her over so she's laying flat on her back, her breasts falling to the sides and making her scar into a deep valley in her skin. But she doesn't want to hide it anymore.

He moves over her, mouth pulling away from hers, and starts moving along her jaw. He licks the little stretch of muscle connecting her neck to her shoulder, and she wonders if he's remembering her complaining of it aching a few days ago.

And then his mouth is on her shoulder, moving over her collarbone, dipping down like he's going to move between her breasts, but changes direction at the last moment, deciding to continue the journey westward over the notch in the center and the jut of the badly healed bone. He moves over her scar and circles around her breast, now moving back up her sternum as he catches her eye and smiles into her skin. He runs his lips over her nipple, like he's trying to learn its exact shape and texture before slipping it into his mouth and sucking hard once, twice, _Maker_ , three times and her skin is starting to get that too-tight feeling again.

She watches him, her fingers running through his hair, not guiding him, but helping him find the places they were too frantic to find last time. This slow, thorough, uncharted journey around her body is making her hazy, and she's entranced by how receptive he is to her reactions, repeating in the places that make her sigh or gasp, leaving the places where she frowns. 

Pushing the blanket away, he puts his weight up onto his knees so he can move about her more freely. He runs his tongue along the narrow scar of Hadriana's lash, like he's hoping he'll be able to carry it away because she knows he blames himself for that one.

He runs a hand along her opposite side, smoothing his thumb across her hipbone before moving it tentatively between her legs, a breath away from the wet curls. She tenses a little, thinking of his smooth elven skin, and how he only has a light feathering of hair over his stomach, groin, arms and legs. He hasn't seemed put off by the hair on  _her_  legs or under her arms, but this is a bit different. When he glances up, she realizes he's only pausing to give her a chance to stop him before he dips into her with his middle finger, running it along her opening from bottom to top.

Feeling how wet she is, his eyes close and he whispers something she can't understand, but she's too distracted to register it because she's rolling her hips up to meet his touch, trying to get him to...

 _"Yes,"_ she breathes as his finger connects with her clit, and she feels him hard again, against her leg. He repeats the motion, and she squirms and cries out, rocking her hips. He smiles up at her before his eyes travel down to watch where his fingers are moving on her, like he's going to find something more miraculous than a tiny nub of nerves that's making her squirm and moan like she's dying even as he's barely moving his fingers. Last time, it had been her fingers on her clit, giving herself the last little push as he thrust desperately into her.

She feels the length of him, heavy and warm and hard only inches from where she wants it and reaches down to put her hand around him again but he moves away, twisting off of the bed so he's kneeling beside her.

"Come here," he whispers as he takes a hold of her hips. She turns with his hands so she's sideways on the bed again. He kisses both of her scarred knees, and one small burn scar she's completely forgotten she has until she feels the soft pressure on the scar tissue. He places his hands on the inside of her thighs and stops.

"Maker, _please..."_

He slowly, carefully spreads her legs and she sighs, arching toward him, practically feeling his eyes on her as he runs a hand over her stomach before bending forward and tracing the same line his finger made a few minutes ago, from the very bottom to the very top, dipping in, taking a little taste of her innermost skin like he's done everywhere else before settling at the top, where he tests every pattern his clever tongue can come up with.

Before long she's curling her toes around his shoulders and grabbing handfuls of her own hair, burying her face in the sheets and blanket now tangled beneath her...the feel of the soft cotton under her flushed cheek smelling just like he does...and right there, right _there..._

She may have spoken the words out loud, but she isn't sure because her senses are so full of him; his hands and his tongue and his taut shoulders against her feet that were definitely pushing against him too hard, but he keeps going. He steadies her hips with his hands, offering her a bit more resistance so she can push as much as she needs. She swears he gives the faintest little laugh against her as he does it and her hands are on his head, tangling in his hair and guiding him to that perfect spot just above her clit and her gasps and moans are fast becoming wails and for once she doesn't stifle them because she actually has him here, and wants him to know what exactly it is that he's doing to her, then...

Whether his mouth is tired or he can't breath or he wants to watch her, she doesn't know.

All she knows is that his tongue is gone and a thumb is on her as soon as it leaves, mimicking the motion and...oh, oh, there are two fingers pushing into her, and she's gained back all the ground she lost in his tongue's brief absence and either its a coincidence or he's an extraordinarily quick study, but he flicks her clit with his thumb just as his other fingers graze someplace inside her and and she's actually screaming, bursting at the seams under someone else's hands for the first time in three years.

" _Evelyen_ ," he breaths, and she wrenches her eyes open to look at him, and there's so much in his face that she can't begin to dissect it all.

She feels him still his fingers inside of her. He brings his other hand up to run up between her breasts, along that hard plane of her breastbone that he seems to love so much. He's holding his breath as her muscles clench and spasm around his fingers, like he wants that and her hammering heart to be the only movement he can feel.

He lets out another Tevene curse that she doesn't understand as she keeps rocking into his fingers, and she's a little embarrassed to see that she's practically gushing into his hand. The tremors come more slowly now, as he continues murmuring soft words whose meaning she only occasionally catches, tracing little abstract patterns over her ribs and the undersides of her breasts. She feels his fingers leave her slowly, and she jerks a little bit because she's so sensitive. As she relaxes back, he reaches over to clean his hand on the towel before rising to his feet and crawling over the bed so he's laying next to her.

She's catching her breath still, and he rests his hand on her waist, moving his thumb slowly back and forth like he's soothing her, and all of a sudden she feels like she needs it. She rocks her head backward, so that she can see out the window, and stares at her upside-down city as it drips and crumbles down into the sky, and sharp tears spring to her eyes. She blinks them away, praying he doesn't see them...not because she thinks he won't understand, but...well, she doesn't want him to think that it has anything whatsoever to do with her being sad or upset with anything that just happened because _nothing_ could be further from the truth. It's just that she's been moving and fighting and being _Hawke_ for such a long stint that letting herself succumb to her body's will after so much time alone was just...

 _Distraction,_ she thinks, as she wills herself to keep the tears from falling. 

"Where in the wild world did you learn how to do that?" she asks, turning to him. He looks a little relieved, he slides an arm under her neck and brings her against him, holding her in the same way he'd reached for and held onto her right before he'd come earlier; like she was something that he might lose if he let go of her for too long.

He pauses, before saying in a deeply amused voice, "If you imagine something for long enough, you're bound to get at least a portion of it right when you get the opportunity to do it."

The thought of him fantasizing about doing that to her was enough to make her insides, already so thoroughly bathed in heat, stir to life again, and the thought of asking him to tell her, of his low voice painting pictures of the other things he's pictured himself doing to her...

"I apologize if that was too--" he says when she doesn't answer, but shaking her head, she kisses him, long and hard to make sure he understands that it's perfectly all right.

 


End file.
